this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Communism is a bit more nebulous, so I'll explain it with socialism if that's okay. I'm also going to do so from the ground up, because it's pretty clear if you go step by step, so apologies in advance if it comes off as condescending for that reason.
Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production. The means of production refers to whatever creates goods and provides services.
If you think about what falls under the umbrella of goods and services, it's pretty much everything. Food, water, shelter, health care, all of it should be held in common. You can see totalitarianism emerging already, but I'll expand a bit further.
What does held in common mean? Well in theory it means that a collective takes ownership and control over something. If a state turns socialist in the purest sense, then that state and the people in it are the collective. The "common" would mean the ruling socialist party, of which everybody is a member.
So how do people get things done? Well, if someone owns a restaurant, they probably hire managers to keep order and give tasks to the workers. If a collective owns a restaurant, someone still has to decide who manages (you find out immediately that you need them if you try without). Since the state is the collective, then the state decides who the managers are. The workers may not like the managers, but instead of having a single owner to deal with, you now have the entire state to deal with.
You might think a union would be the answer to this problem, but unions are both a collective and a service, so if it's truly socialism it would be of the state as well. The state would have little incentive to act against itself. In socialist countries, it's common for unions to become agents of the state very quickly, this enacting state level control over how people protest their work conditions
Rinse and repeat with every good and service you can think of, and you have total state control over basically everything.
Couldn't the workers decide who manages the restaurant? And get rid of them if they don't like them? I don't get what you mean by "the state decides who the managers are".
The ownership of the restaurant is held in common, so if it comes down to a vote everybody in the state would have just as much a right to it as everyone else, so it wouldn't inherently fall to the workers. If it did, it would be at the behest of the state; that's true in both cases actually. It just isn't a natural outcome for the workers to vote for their own manager: if it existed, it would only exist as long as the state allows it or chooses things to work that way.
Also, should workers be choosing their own supervisors? I would argue, regardless of whatever ism you subscribe to, without considering the political climate whatever work is sitting in, I would never see it as a good idea to let workers decide who supervises them. Managers are there to help workers who don't know what to do, are unwilling to do what they need without supervision, or are just generally unorganized. If someone is in need of a manager, chances are they would also not know the qualities needed for management. In the best case, it's because there's some expertise they didn't know was required for the job that they didn't know about, in the worst case, I can imagine teenage me voting for the person I liked who didn't give a fuck
In any case, it wouldn't take long for some restaurant somewhere to choose a manager that appeases their laziness, stupidity, or whatever out of a desire to escape discipline and/or hard work. People are selfish, it'll happen. As soon as it does, those in control of the state will decide it's best to have a process in which they decide who manages their workers on your behalf. You can't have a full direct democratic vote for every decision, it's just not feasible, so the alternative is the party that you represent and represents you back and makes decisions on your behalf.
It's also very easy for those in control of the state to see potential gains in changing the process to give themselves more power, that can and will just happen spontaneously out of a desire to strengthen the party
So your point is people are too selfish and egoistical to have a real saying on how work is organized? Then why are people responsible enough to vote for the right politicians every four or so years? Where is the line? Following your argumentations it seems best if someone in charge makes all the decisions without the majority having any saying. That cannot be what you want.
No, my point is that people are a mixed bag, with varying expertise. The business owner is obviously the most likely person to be able to make an informed decision about his or her business. This is not an anti democratic observation - it's a pragmatic one. Matters of the state tend to be far more public than private business dealings, so as adults of voting age it's our responsibility to inform ourselves as best we can, and no, it isn't perfect, but it's what we got and it seems to be working okay so far.
If you work for a business owned by the state, what saying power do you have? If your manager is elected by your peers, or people in general, who do you talk to when issues come up? If you work for a private business owner, you're far more likely to have a direct line of contact to someone who we can assume cares about their own business, and therefor is more likely to care about issues in the workplace. What I'm advocating is in FAVOR of having a say
As far as having a final say is concerned, this is so obviously true and non-controversial. In fact, this is the basis of all legal rights: The assumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law. A judge should be the one in charge making the final decision without the majority having a say. That's the difference between our legal system and the times of the witch trials. You can't have democracy everywhere, you can't leave everything to a vote. Someone has to make the call sometimes, and it's not an inherent moral wrong to do so.